BIEN co-founder Guy Standing is slated to speak at a student-led economics conference at the University of Glasgow on March 12.

The Glasgow Economic Forum (GEF) is an annual conference organized by students at the University of Glasgow, intended to encourage undergraduate economics students to learn more “outside of the textbooks.” The third GEF will be held March 11-12, 2017, with a focus on economic growth. According to its Eventbrite page, the 2017 GEF “sets out to explore a plurality of perspectives on whether growth constitutes a means or is an end in itself.”

The conference’s headline speakers include BIEN co-founder Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), who will speak on themes from his latest book, The Corruption of Capitalism (2016, BiteBack), wherein he argues that “rentier capitalism” has broken down and needs to be replaced with an economic system centered on a basic income.

Other headline speakers include Professor Leszek Balcerowicz (former Finance Minister for Poland and the former President of the National Bank of Poland) and John Weeks (Professor Emeritus of SOAS).

According to the GEF’s website, the two previous conferences drew nearly 200 attendees from across Europe, including student groups from universities throughout the UK. Previous meetings focused on the global financial crisis of 2007-08 and its impact.

Guy Standing (credit: Enno Schmidt)

For Standing, the GEF meeting comes amid a busy week.

On March 9, he will meet ambassadors and officials of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to discuss basic income and the precariat. On March 10, he is scheduled to speak about The Corruption of Capitalismat the Headstrong Club in Lewes, UK, a debate and discussion venue that describes itself as promoting “high-quality discussion and debate on a wide range of topics” at special ticketed events. On March 11, he will meet with the National Union of Journalists in London to talk about the precariat. Then on March 13, the day after the GEF talk, Standing will present themes from this new book at a Marx Research Seminar at the University of Lincoln.

About Kate McFarland

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